Picking the Format

As we covered in the previous lesson, a strong understanding of your customer avatar serves as a great launching point for determining the topic you'll be covering.

The webinar's format is no different!

Often times, you'll want to test different webinar formats, but you can usually look at your objective and have a rough idea of what format would give you the best outcome.

There are a few elements to be aware of for each webinar format:

Interview: This is a great format to use to share insights around a topic without requiring all of the work needed to become an expert on a topic yourself—instead you'll be borrowing this expertise from your guests.

You'll provide a platform for them to share their knowledge and insights with your audience, guiding the conversation so to keep it oriented towards your audience's goals/objectives.

These are great for delivering high levels of education, potentially tying in your own product offerings where applicable. Of course, this will be mutually beneficial for your interviewee(s) as they earn exposure and credibility from your audience.

Discussion: Similar to an interview with its education focus, discussions allow you and a panel to speak with authority around a topic, delivering real value to your audience.

With the real-time nature of your live webinar events, you're also able to engage your audience in the conversation and gain/give valuable feedback.

Most Attendees will be tuning in to learn insights and valuable takeaways from the discussion, but it's a great opportunity to showcase and discuss how your product offerings can be applied within the context of those same insights/takeaways.

Q&A: This type of format is incredibly effective (and quite popular) for all sorts of use cases. In fact, it's not uncommon for Q&As to be incorporated on most events—it gives your Attendees an opportunity to address specific pain points and scenario-specific concerns.

In fact, questions (and their answers) naturally follow from the connected element that webinars provide and encouraging your audience to ask these questions can boost engagement across the board.

For certain objectives (like Demand Generation and Sales Events), you may want to bring an idea from start to finish, which means you'll want to create a seamless presentation that only stops to answer the objections or create the engagement you control. However, even in these scenarios, simply informing your audience of a Q&A portion at the end will serve to keep them engaged.

Presentation: The go-to format when most people think about webinars!

The goal of any presentation is to navigate the content from one point to another using a clear and concise path—your task is to help your audience overcome hurdles, guide them towards goals, or add knowledge around a topic. This is the bread-and-butter for most goal-driven webinars.

A visual presentation can come in handy here and is considered a must-have in most scenarios!

Remember, it's never a bad idea to experiment with different formats, including combining them and running a hybrid event (think of a presentation with a dedicated Q&A at the end OR an interview style panel discussion).

The possibilities are limitless! (well, almost)